In a nutshell, compared to any other time in Post World War 2 History, this is the longest “Wage Recession” yet. There are a number of factors that contribute to this phenomenon, some of which are cited in the article (Friday March 1st’s Edition of Investors Business Daily, front page).
In the past, Wage Recovery preceded job recovery. In THIS economy, however, this is not the case.
One of the biggest reasons for this is the shift from “quality” jobs ie: Financial Services, Information Technology, Construction, Manufacturing…you know..those jobs which require Math and Science, something the United States has been falling behind in relative to the rest of the world for decades, to service jobs in Retail, Restaurants/Food Services and Employment Services; which typically pay less and require less skills. I cannot help myself…I have to say it…our current regime obviously favors the idea of other nations besting us in the output of highly skilled professionals whose professions are rooted in math & science; but damn it if anyone in the world can cook a better burger!
Further, most of these “jobs” are only part time; credit for this is given to the ingenious “ObamaCare” act which has essentially pushed companies into changing their business models to revolve around a heck of a lot more part time work (for those not in the know, Corporations can avoid the stiff 3,000 USD penalty per worker by keeping employees hours under 30 hours per week…how they could not predict that businesses would adapt to their insanity I do not know..but as I stated in my column, today in fact, on RealtorOfMiami.wordpress.com, Common Sense is not that common. The number of part time workers today nearly doubles the number of part time workers in 2007. This trend WILL continue as corporations continue to ready themselves for the coming, ObamaCare induced, insanity. With all respect though, there is some genius in it. They are not only spreading the wealth; they enacted a law that will spread the available job hours around. Why have one full time job that pays medical benefits for one when you can have two part time jobs that don’t provide medical to anyone and you can stick the medical costs to the tax payer? I do not condone this thinking. Socially I am a Liberal; Fiscally, I am a Conservative. Obama needs an education on basic economics because the system(s) he proposes have never worked, anywhere, at any time in past history.
I wrote an article relating to this one on my other blog, http://www.RealtorOfMiami.com. The inflation we have seen over the past 5 years exceeds wage growth. This means that every man & woman who is working is getting progressively poorer and even with zero debt will eventually (and I know several people who this has already happened to) have to take a step backwards in terms of Standard of Living just to continue making ends meet. This in of itself will continue to create a wider gap between the Haves and Have Nots. This is not the American Dream; it is slow implementation of another form of Slavery.
Have a great weekend 🙂
Cheers,
Christopher Lazaro
